Summary/Minutes for today's FESCo meeting (2012-12-19)

[Miloslav Trmač]

On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 11:56 PM, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler at chello.at> wrote:
> Tomas Mraz wrote:
>>   * AGREED: 1. systemd is granted an exception to put helper
>>     applications in /usr/lib/systemd  (t8m, 19:03:17)
>>   * AGREED: 2. the systemd unit files of all the packages are granted an
>>     exception to be under /usr/lib/systemd  (t8m, 19:03:33)
>
> Yuck! I really don't see why we should be granting this type of exceptions.
> libexec and share exist for a reason. Helper binaries need to be in libexec,
> unit files in share, I think allowing systemd to dump everything (and in
> particular 64-bit stuff) to lib is setting a horrible precedent.

Please read the meeting log for the full rationale.

In short: (I hope I'm not mischaracterizing; FESCo members, please
correct me if anything is incorrect or misleading.)

The exceptions were granted to avoid the impact of fixing this on
developers, and more importantly on users (the /usr/lib/systemd paths
for units are in various documentation, and even worse the paths to
binaries in /usr/lib/systemd are embedded in users' copies of units
placed in /etc/; moving the binaries would break users'
configuration).

Several (but not all?) FESCo members were concerned about setting a
bad precedent, and in fact there was a proposal to approve an explicit
statement to the effect that similar exceptions will not be granted in
the future.  This explicit statement was not approved; the most common
objection was that "FESCo explicitly saying that the established
policies are to be respected" is redundant and unnecessary.
    Mirek